Warlock

A warlock is a male practitioner of magic.[1] The most commonly accepted etymology derives warlock from the Old Englishwǣrloga meaning "oathbreaker" or "deceiver".[2] However, in early modern Scots, the word came to be used as the male equivalent of witch (which can be male or female, but is used predominantly for females).[3] From this use, the word passed into Romantic literature and ultimately 20th-century popular culture. A derivation from the Old Norsevarð-lokkur, "caller of spirits", has also been suggested;[4][5][6][7] however, the Oxford English Dictionary discounts this due to the extreme rarity of the Norse word and the fact that forms without -k, consistent with the expected Old English etymology, are attested earlier than forms with -k.[8]

^McNeill, F. Marian, The Silver Bough: A Four Volume Study of the National and Local Festivals of Scotland, Glasgow: William Maclellan,1957, vol 1; also Chambers, Robert, Domestic Annals of Scotland, Edinburgh: 1861, and Sinclair, George, Satan's Invisible World Discovered, Edinburgh, 1871

^Loewe, M., Blacker, C.Oracles and Divination, p.130 ("'Vardlokkur'...is related to the Scots dialect word 'warlock', wizard, and the meaning is thought to relate to the power to shut in or enclose"), London, George Allen & Unwin, 1981